kaiserpapers.com/businesspractices
To
the left is a photograph of the Kaiser Center of Power in Oakland,
California. This is where George Halvorson and Jay Crosson
share
an office floor. They claim that they operate the two
corporations at an arms length distance.
They claim that to the press and they
claim that to the I.R.S. Nothing could
really be further from the truth.
This is
the Pathway to Understanding the Permanente Profits.
Focus
on the 15th to the 28th floor of the Kaiser Building to your left.
Both
Dr. Crosson and Mr. Halvorson have offices on the 28th floor.
On
the 20th floor - is found Retirement funding; the 16th floor
is
the Care Management Institute; the 15th floor -is where the
Tax
center is located. We don't know what is on the 29th floor in
case you are curious about that. All Kaiser and Permanente
facilities in this country are controlled out of this building.
Profit comes from doing as little as
possible for patients. The expected 2007 profit may hit $2 billion, an
all time high. Half goes to the physicians. An
equal 50/50 split.
The
50% Split of
Profits At Kaiser Permanente
This is a
summary of the development
of the sixty year profit split at Kaiser Permanente whereby the
physicians get
50% of every dollar that is collected from patients and government and
not
spent. This is
really the split of
“profits” though Kaiser uses every possible word to
cover-up the use of such a
word – net revenue, operating margin, etc.
Even the bond companies paid by Kaiser to rate KP
bonds
have joined in
to cloud the obvious presence of huge profits as well as the split with
the MD
partners. The
creation of profits for
the physicians is the single most import principle at the mammoth HMO
and
guides every decision. (CP)
1.
The idea of splitting
profits 50:50 was presented to Henry
J. Kaiser as Warren (“Dad”) Bechtel
successfully invited the
former from a
competitor to a partner within the San Francisco Exchange
– both having
been handy at tool work and new tool design but with little formal
education;
they went on to build projects like dams and highways all over the
world (some
useful and some useless). [Source – for
“Dad” Bechtel’s formula for Kaiser was
the book - “Henry J. Kaiser - Western Colossus.”]
2.
One
Internet source said that Mr. Henry Kaiser
was mostly a public and noisy stand in – Daddy Warbucks style - for the
much
more secretive Bechtel family (with their internal stock transactions
and CIA
level secrecy); in
the same way the
Kaiser Plan has lots of press releases whereas
- quite to the opposite - the physicians’
Permanente Federation takes
every advantage of being completely private with entirely internal
stock
transactions; [thus
penetrating the Permanente profit system is not easy though every
physician on
partnership track cannot wait until “vesting” [read as
partaking in increasing
profits].
3. Sidney R. Garfield, MD –
“The Founder” of Permanente - made
$250,000 profit during four years of the
Depression in the early 1930s by taking in more money than
he chose to
spend on the care of those 5000 men and women building the California
Aqueduct
bringing water to Los Angeles; he
preferred to amass apartment buildings in Los Angles as he also told
his nurses
he was near to broke. [Source
for the
$250,000 figure – page 18 in Chapter One –
“The Desert Song – 1933-1938” in the
Book – “Can Physicians Manage the Quality and Costs
of
Health Care?” or hereafter called Book
Source #1 – a book available for $3 on Kaiser’s current Website]
4.
Henry
Kaiser and Dr. Sydney Garfield joined
together in 1938 on the Grand
Coulee Dam in eastern Washington linked previous
through Mr. Kaiser’s first employee – Mr. A. B. Ordway;
all three understood the importance of making
a profit of projects related to the government [note that the key
Kaiser high
rise is called the “Ordway
Building” at One Kaiser Plaza in Oakland];
5.
That
concept of making a profit from doing
government contracts has never changed – see the book
“Henry Kaiser – The Rise
of a Governmental Entrepreneur.”; the favorite
government contracts for both Kaiser and Bechtel are those which
– like some in
Medicare – guarantee a profit over costs, which is not
capitalism risk but
rather straight profiteering at taxpayer risk.
6. Mr. Henry Kaiser and Dr.
Sydney Garfield married sisters in Lafayette, California; decisions
about building
new hospitals – like that in Walnut Creek, California
– were probably made
sitting out having cocktails on the porch in the evening; the other
physicians
were angry they were not consulted about this particular venture. [Book Source 1]
7. The
Kaiser Organization/ Permanente Health Plan
and [Dr.] Sydney Garfield and Associates, Inc. were both for profit
entities
when they reorganized for tax purposes in 1945 – the year
they associate as
their official [really tax] beginning; the lawyers wanted to make sure
that at
least two of the organizations looked benevolent so as to be
quasi-charities or
public trusts; [Source
- Book Source #1
–page 77.]
8. Henry
Kaiser then “bought out” Dr. Garfield;
then “upon the advice of George Link, Kaiser’s
tax attorney, Garfield withdrew
completely from The Permanente Medical Group.” [Book Source
#1 – page 77.]
9. This
was only for tax purposes because Dr.
Garfield “was
remaining on not only as executive
director of the Health Plan but also as the De facto executive director
of The
Permanente Medical Group”;
and
pretenses about being separate have since only been for tax posturing
(now
going on some 60 years), the IRS being a willing co-enabler of the
profit-ladened HMO for most of its carrier. [Quote from Book Source #1
– page
80.]
10. “… the
Permanente Health Plan, a non-profit trust,
was established to take the program into the postwar era. This new nonprofit
organization was chosen
instead of a corporation in order to avoid the charge of the corporate
practice
of medicine, which was at the time an unthinkable
alternative.” [Source
Book 1 – page 62 – the corporate
practice of medicine by Permanente groups is equally wrong
AND ILLEGAL but
alive and kicking at this time.]
11. Henry
Kaiser was so rich that he was able to
leave $500 million as an endowment for the Kaiser
Family Foundation (KFF) to
permit yearly spending of some 10%; in Oakland alone he owned over 70
of his
hundred plus for profit companies. [The
Kaiser Family
Foundation is so afraid of being tainted to the profit trail, they have no
history on their Website; it is a little like the benign Nobel
prizes being an
offshoot of the profits of dynamite.
]
12. The
original organizational papers for the first
Permanente Group – The Permanente Medical Group, Inc.
– were clearly set up
“for profit” in 1950 [original incorporation filing
papers available]; there
was never a doubt about that except that the Kaiser ads try to
emphasize just
simple physicians with only a salary base and tiny incentives;
13. The
real problem came when the physicians wanted
Dr. Garfield’s same cut of the action – the 50% in
profits; this was
realized after a huge debate at
Henry
Kaiser’s Fleur de Lac home and the
“Working Group” negotiations that
followed, the conclusion being called the “Tahoe
Agreement”;
[Source – two whole chapters on the Tahoe
Agreement in Source
Book #1];
14. The
agreement is in the Bancroft Library in
Berkeley with original signatures and has been reproduced in
the Kaiser book –
“Appendix VII – Tahoe Agreement – July 14, 1955
– Decisions of the Working
Council” by Raymond M. Kay, MD 1979; note that in
IV section (2) “Any
excess of revenue over the aggregate of these base needs
would be shared in the Medical Groups and the Hospitals on some
negotiated
percentage basis.” (page
171)
[Source - Dr. Kay’s book – Historical Review of the
Southern California
Permanente Medical Group – 1979];
15. The original document
referred to above is in the faded copy to be found on the Berkeley
Campus in
the Kaiser Collection – copied for review within the
kaiserpapers.com.; the
signatures are hard to read but are typed in the above book by Dr. Kay
on page
167 and include Henry J. Kaiser, Edgar J. Kaiser, Sydney R. Garfield,
etc. all
as trustees and Medical Group Representatives Cecil C. Cutting, MD,
Raymond M. Kay, MD,
etc. [Outside of
this book Kaiser has made no effort to copy this document since.]
16. While many new
organizations find all this too
risky to
print, the material becomes crystal clear within Kaiser’s own
favorite book –
Source 1 – page 158 – details of the six point
Tahoe Agreement included “Fifthly,
financial arrangements were
established and agreed upon in which both the Hospitals and the
Permanente Medical
Groups would be supported in their basic needs.
Excess revenue would be equally distributed
…” [Kaiser
spends $45,000,000 a year to try to
hide the profit motive; only enough people believe them to keep their
membership flat, never again to get above 9 million unless government
makes
them the “private” solution to the uninsured .]
17. The
profit split is also reflected in the
Medical
Services Agreement (MSA) in Article
K (the sample showing up in Johnson
County, Kansas court papers) whereby an angry Permanente
partner sued the
suddenly imploding Permanente
group;
[Source – 100 plus pages of court records obtained directly
by Dr. Phillips
from the courthouse when he arrived in person. ]
{Note that in the case Timmis
v. Kaiser,
Kaiser turned over a sample MSA but left out Article K – Dr.
Phillips then knew
finding this Article would be useful to understanding how KP works.}
18. All
of Article K is on the kaiserpapers.com run
by Vickie Travis. A
sampling includes the
following: “Article
K – At Risk Compensation … K-2 Calculation
… (c) If there is any Net Program
Revenue, Planned At Risk compensation will be increased by an amount
equal to
50% of Net Program Revenue …”
19. [The
Article
K limit is 10% of all “Medical
Services Cost” so that the larger the portion of the
organization that
Permanente watches over (all outpatient operations) the less likely
that the
profit split will ever have a real limit; keeping hospital budgets low
also
achieves this as well; and in tax year 2003, for example, all hospital
costs
were below $6 billion while the payments to the physician groups went
above
that amount.
20. The
percentage of split achieved after calming
Henry Kaiser down – probably annoyed since he had bought out
the accumulated
business value of the physician group from Dr. Garfield –
“The Health Plan
agreed to pay the Medical Group 50 percent of the net Health Plan
revenue, if
any.” [Kaiser
has never denied this –
they simply will not comment on it (total silence like the Bechtel
family where
even bankers leave their briefcases outside the meeting room door).]
21. Internally
it is referred to as one of the MOUs
– “memorandums of understanding”
– private documents often; this understanding
was repeated in “Tahoe II,” also known as the
Recovery Plan by 2001; this Plan
was explained with a photo opportunity picture in the Permanente
Journal. [Source -
see online article “A New Moment in the History of Kaiser
Permanente” by
Francis J. Crosson – Fall 1997 – the
Permanente Journal – “The National
Partnership Agreement” section with Figure 3 picture
– Dr. Crosson and Dr.
Lawrence front row center – now linked as the co-chair of KP
– signing date
February 5, 1997]
22. Dr.
Garfield – “the Founder” –
relieved of
direct license risk as he rose to administrative-only (after selling
out to Mr.
Kaiser) went on to transform the Kaiser organization into a business
machine
with patients often as the “worried well” [Source
Book 1 – page 211] and
physicians who needed to see themselves a coaches of healthy life
styles but
also as “profit centers” [Same book –
page 176];
23. the
patients became the “external customers”
–
ravaged by their own imperfect life choices that salmon and broccoli
could have
avoided - and the nurses “internal customers” in
the race for profits; [Source
One Book.]; the nurses’ union was
later
– like other labor groups, e.g. SEIU – pulled into
the profit dividend enough
that both are silence (employees feel they have no one speaking up
now);
[Another source for “External Customers” was
“Service Behavior Expectations”
booklet cover – Kaiser Fresno – 1998]
24. In
the 1971 interaction with President Nixon,
the Kaiser family representative – CEO Edgar Kaiser -
through Mr. Erlichman was clear about profiteering –
“the less care they give
them the more they make” (also recently reflected in the
movie “Sicko”) [Source
material – see” kaiserpapers.com”
link to the University of Virginia
library were the presidential tapes are kept]
25. [President Nixon’s speech the next
day suggested
that HMOs were often costing 70% of fee for service; Medicare now has
calculated that HMOs on the average have cost 108% of the cost of what
they
replaced - fee for service.]
26. Kaiser
helped draft the “HMO Act of 1973” which
all but required physicians to be put at profit-loss risk for patient
care; and
all HMOs soon set
physicians up
for “full risk”
contracts as being the most profitable.
27. Congress
envisioned the risk to be kept among
physicians and hospitals, but both groups have become expert at
shifting the
risk of illness back to patients; it now part of the insurance game to
under
test and under treat so as to not spend money on the full burden of
disease,
hence profits.
28. In
1984 all physician Medicare payments were
frozen for 15 months –“Deficit Reduction Act of 1984”
- while compensation was
studied; Kaiser wrote up its compensation for Medicare and it was
published
including the planned profit of each year;
[Source – Medicare Book – Payment for Physician Services –
Strategies
for Medicare – February 1986 – NTIS order
#PB86-182011 – Library of Congress #
85-600641 – Box 7-B on gray paper –
“Payment to Physicians in Northern
California Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program”
– abstracted from Dr. M.
Collen’s report to Medicare.]
29. “The
incentive payment was not considered to be
a ‘surplus’ or an ‘excess’ of
earnings, but a planned feature of the Medical
Group’s physician compensation program.”
And in the same materials plans that are risk
sharing
(TERFA) “may
realize the same profit rate on its Medicare enrollees as on its
commercial
enrollees, without limits on the profit the plan may earn.”
(page 184)
30. The
only puzzle has been how big is the profit
as Medicare was told it was only 5%; but that was – if true
at all - 5% of the
TOTAL Permanente budget, since Permanente takes on at risk all of the
outpatient expenses (over half of the whole HMO budget) including all
pharmacists, outpatient nurses, clinic overhead, etc.;
[Sources
– include the pay stubs of one former Kaiser
nurse – Virginia Davies -
from Oregon; she
has been fighting for
years for her fair
retirement around
employment records lost by Kaiser.]
31. The “Prime Minister of
the Empire” was Mr. Eugene Trefethen who carefully
worked out the 50:50 split;
the physician groups never like the word profit but had a better word
for it:
“The sharing of profits had always been an integral part of
the physicians’
compensation – referred to as a
‘participation.’
The degree of ‘participation’ was
based on
longevity with the group …” [Source
– page 91 of Dr. Kay’s book –
“Historical Review of the Southern California
Permanente Medical Group” –
usually clear material in this early (1979) book by a key player
– the Southern
California unit existing in Dr. Kay’s
“shadow” as the first Medical Director.]
32. Thus
the individual physician can within this
system experience the division of a profit share – mostly
delayed income – that
doubles the total income for any hour; the key
is that the income must not track directly from any one
patient’s misery of
care withheld. [One Arbitration
judge suggested to Dr.
Phillips that one would have to actually see the money moving as the
particular
patient suffered; he also commented “of course,
they’re for profit.”]
33. The
physicians track the profits carefully and
called the loss of profit in 1996-1997 one of the
three “near death” experiences in the
history of the HMO; the head physician published an article in 2007
stating
that the physicians must as taught by the Founder – Dr.
Garfield – aka The
Father - always keep
“your hands on your purses”
[Source
– The Permanente Journal – Summer
2007 – Volume II No. 3 “Purpose, Partnership, and The Permanente
Federation’s
Tenth Anniversary” page 61-62 by (pediatrician) Jay Crosson, MD
– the Executive
Director for The Permanente Federation (and also the co-chair
with Mr.
Halvorson of the top executive committee of KP called the Kaiser National
Partnership Group (KNPG) and now Kaiser Permanente Program Group (KPPG)).]
34. Most
organizations think carefully before changing their various titles for
internal
clarity; Kaiser changes names of committees all the time as a method of
confusing those watching from the outside;
35. As
to
one of many views of the near death
experience, Managed Care magazine in September of 2000 reported
(“’New Aetna
and Kaiser Face Future”) that “On
the other hand, it
doesn’t pay to be too warm and fuzzy,
as Kaiser Permanente found out. The company lost $881 million in 1997
and
1998.”; internally on an ER break room wall
Kaiser pictured itself as a
“mean machine”
in 1998. [Dr. Phillips worked
there and kept a copy.]
36. Reporter Chris Rauber in a
separate article in
Modern Healthcare in May of 1999
– “First-quarter turn around for Kaiser”
–
reported “Even so, Kaiser’s operating losses in
1997 and 1998 totaled $881
million and its net losses over the same period topped $550
million.” [The
timing of the article was related to the
Bond Market where Kaiser has $3 billion in bonds to build hospitals
– JP Morgan
and Citigroup as Underwriters;
California helps to keep these bonds tax free –
treating this profit system as a charity.]
37. Francis
J. Crosson, MD, in his article
“Permanente Medicine: The Path to a Sustainable Future”
– in the Permanente
Journal Winter 1999 characterized the profit of Permanente at about
$600
million to $800 million a year in the “mid-1990s”
to the loss of $270 million
in 1997 and perhaps about as much expected for 1998; then in 2007 he
referred
to this time as one of the “near death” experiences
in the same journal.
38. The
way out was the “Path to a Sustainable Future”
[read Sustainable Future as retirement gold for the individual doctor]
was his
leadership as head of the Permanente Federation; that is now in 2007 a
ten year
leadership and he would like to be voted in for another 5 by trying to
look as
valuable as The Founder.
39. Dr.
Crosson’s goal is that KP achieve a 5%
“margin goal” [read as profit goal] each year on a
budget now approaching $40
billion – which would be $2 billion (perhaps to be achieved
in 2007). [Note
Kansas City legal suit page 131
including minutes of a Permanente meeting in which Dr. Crosson was
present by
phone.] {He also recommending lower costs to the “lower one
third of the
market” [read as the poor].}
40. The
father of the HMO movement – Paul Ellwood
who invented the term - in 2000 reported in the Globe Staff newspaper
that a “A
Kaiser official told me the other day, ‘Until better quality
attracts more
patients, I don’t care about it any
more.’”; Mr. Ellwood suggested more power to
the people.
41. The
IRS has only given out tax breaks as Dr.
Crosson and Mr. Halvorson keep an “arm’s
length” relationship between the Plan
and the physician Federation; the IRS is not paying attention to these two with the same 27th
(second to top) floor of the Ordway Building;
42. Further
proof the physicians are more than
salaried comes from an ad placed in a journal meant to attract Canadian
orthopedists –the Kaiser orthopedist explained
“Physicians are both employees
and shareholder/owners.”
[Source – www.infinityheart.com/ontario-california.html
or
http://www.aaos.org/wordhtml/mngdcare/empfrndy.htm];
43. Most
of the physician profit never leaves the
Kaiser Plan as it funds the “unfunded” retirement
plan; the Permanente partners
retire with $15,000 a month AND their IRAs and Roth Accounts [Source -
bankruptcy papers for Kaiser orthopedist Dr.
Max R Moses – forever available in
court records in LA and San Francisco transferred Online to the
kaiserpapers.com Website; Dr.
Moses and his wife pleaded guilty to misdemeanor
tax evasion and had suspended jail sentences - 1991.];
{Dr. Moses had accumulated $260,372.00 in
KEOH funds which had clearly come from Permanente group profits on top
of his
$26,000 a month salary and separate from the main retirement fund.}
44. In
the end “Kaiser Permanente” is the business
plan by which the KP retirement fund (a real and registered business)
is
funded; this is the
whole point by which
there is a need for a “Our
Sustainable Future” [see the Permanente Medicine Map
designed by Kaiser in 2001];
KP
otherwise stands for the business plan called “the Kaiser
Permanente Medical
Care Plan” ;
45. Kaiser Permanente is the
most sophisticated method of withholding care ever developed on this
earth; and
the development of such junk science (“best
practices”) within the sixteen
floor of the Ordway Building at the Care Management Institute is
actually
deducted as if a public service, though the documents remain secret to
patients.
46. The
real group thriving is the physician
partners headed by Dr. Crosson (Jay) and Dr. Pearl (Bob), the later
head of the
largest group in Northern California – The Permanente Medical
Group, Inc. or
TPMG; Dr.
Crosson’s Federation and its
business unit PermCo (think venture investments) are registered in
Delaware for
more tax avoidance;
47. And
while the Kaiser website states things like
“non-profit” and “Permanente physicians
devote their full attention to
providing quality care to Kaiser Permanente members,” each physician partner
doubles as an accountant watching over the other physicians
nearby; and all
Kaiser units are set in business competition with each other;
48. New
physicians coming to Kaiser get to go to a
retreat with their wives to hear the financial possibilities
– “Post
program survey confirmed that the benefits and
retirement presentation was highly valued and had high correlation with
perceived value of staying with the medical group.”
[Source
– Group Practice Journal –
“Partnership Is a State of Mind – Not a Piece of
Paper – Enculturation at
Kaiser Permanente Orange County” by Richard Pitts, D.O. -
March 2003 Volume 52
Number 3 - also
talks about DNA
insertion of the new physicians.]
49. Although
Kaiser used the ad tagline “In the
hands of doctors” for a number of years (like
1999), a judge ruled in
Olsen/Victa v. Permanente that it
simply was not true; Kaiser went on to buy
out the plaintiff side so the full settlement around deaths from aortic
aneurysms could be forever buried;
50. Note in this lawsuit the
accusation: “In order to effectuate these policies”
[withholding care] “Kaiser
implemented, among other things, physician bonus pay and leadership
compensation explicitly keyed to profit targets to encourage such
providers to
reduce the amount and extent of healthcare services provided to
plaintiffs and
members of the Class.” [Class action – Case No.
301998 – First Amended
Complaint – Superior Court – San Francisco
– 1999]
51. Rather
Kaiser “distributes talking points
quickly” when there is any hint of bad news, e.g. a physician
pediatric abuser; and
they understand that Letters to the
Editor are the best read parts of a newspaper [Source – of
“talking points” –
The Permanente Journal Winter 1999 – “Kaiser Permanente’s Public Images:
Impact
& Response” – the Talking Points
being particularly useful near Washington,
DC – one of the “most important .. media markets
…”]
52. The
Permanente Journal [also online] is supposed
to be used (in the same article as above) to “promote
Permanente Medicine” (as
distinct from the HMO) and to “market the KP
organization.” [This is why the
Permanente Journal has never been viewed as a real academic journal of
any
worth; their best article ever was on Hemochromatosis but only at a
time when
they were looking for patients for paid research.]
53. Incidentally,
as Charles C. Harwood, Jr. gave
his online executive biography for Covance Inc. within
Hoover’s Online he
mentioned that he was the “director of the Mid-Atlantic Permanente
Medical
Group, the for-profit
physician group serving
the Mid-Atlantic region of the Kaiser Permanente health plan.” [Source – March
14, 2001.]
54. Each
Permanente partner is forced to remain
silent about all of these topics since the $2 million value retirement
package
can be removed back to Permanente by the
“committee” without proof or contract.
[Source
– materials from Dr.
Moores papers on
the corruption of recommended bad
physicians as the leave – papers shared with
kaiserpapers.com
– including received from a Physician currently with SCPMG
-
The
“ Retirement Plan
for Physicians Serving Members of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan
… G6 Improper
Activities. A Participant
is subject to
Disqualification for an Improper Activity if at any time during his or
her
Service or Retirement (a)
… engages in
any activity, the principal purpose of which is to damage or discredit
the
Health Plan …”]
https://kaiserpapers.com/selfincrimination/
55. Also
notice in Dr. Phillips copy of the
employment booklet it is clear that
cooperation is expected even after leaving
temporary (fire “at will”) hourly employment:
“Professional
Liability … Physicians agree to
cooperate fully with TPMG and KFHP in the defense of said claims. If a physician is no
longer employed by TPMG,
he/she will cooperate as necessary with the defense of any case. In this latter
circumstance, the physician
will be compensated at a rate equivalent to the current unit rate for
that
specialty.” So
had Dr. Phillips
been called back to testify, he would have been paid over $100 an hour
to
“cooperate.” [As
this would be paid
after the legal event was over, it would be up to Kaiser Plan attorneys
to
decide if the testimony was useful to the cause of protecting the HMO.]
56. Meanwhile
the physician would be protected from
malpractice “if the physicians act in a manner reasonably
believed to be in the
best interest of TPMG …” [thus again the attorneys
can work free or charge the
physician as they choose to interpret what occurred].
57. Physicians
in Permanente that do try to blow the
whistle are retaliated against, e.g. see jury award of $200,000 to Mark L.
Woods of Bellflower Kaiser Hospital; unknown to the jury, Dr.
Woods was
terminated as a Permanente partner as the jury deliberated [retirement
would
also disappear with loss of partnership, the money reverting to the
partnership].
58. Physicians
are expected to be Permanente
partners for life – they agree to never work elsewhere
without permission, the
retire and work hourly after 65, they must use Kaiser as their Medicare
“Senior
Advantage” Plan, they must never criticize any part of the
HMO, they must – if
asked - defend the HMO against critics, they must keep the profit
systems
secret, etc.; otherwise a committee can vote to have their millions in
retirement monies revert back to the partners (whether or not
incorporated).
59. Note
in the legal papers of Dr. Moses’
bankruptcy there is the accepted fact that “A similar
forfeiture and
redistribution also would occur if after retirement, a physician were
to render
professional services for any hospital or health plan other than one
operated
by Kaiser.” [Source
– http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=use&vol=410&invol=441
page 3 of 22]
60. Those
who leave for other than medical reasons
generally need to be licensed wounded on the way out through a sham peer review
in which their care is suddenly called deficient with a plethora of
witnesses
easily assembled; since every professional in Kaiser practices just
beyond the
edge of competence, finding error is a target rich environment;
61. One
such physician told Dr. Phillips that he had
achieved $1 million of his planned retirement vestings “so
far” in fighting
Permanente (Kaiser Plan attorneys) but was after the rest (probably
well over
another million dollars); one
way to
achieve any such win is not to talk about any of this but perhaps to
threaten
too for leverage;
62. The
major myths of advertising then are as
follows: the pretense that Kaiser Permanente is
“non-profit”; the pretense that
the physicians are simply salaried; and the pretense that their
treatment
guidelines are tied to science not greed;
[Source – Kaiser Website; note that Medicare
believes correctly that
Websites are advertising sites.]
63. In
the Spring of each year Kaiser bonds are for
sale and there are brief releases about “net
income,” like “Kaiser earnings are
up 30%” in the San Francisco Chronicle February 16, 2007;
that article even had
a comparison of 2004 (5% “margin” or $1.8 billion)
vs. 2005 at $1 billion vs.
2006 at $1.3 billion, but the words “profit” never
appear. [Profit in
2007 might go over $2 billion.]
64. Most
newspapers report the profit and then print
the not-for-profit paragraph that accompanies the Kaiser news release;
luckily
more of them are recognizing that the Kaiser false ad tagline does not
belong
in an honest article.
65. Knowing
that their taxes are public, the various
Kaiser Plans will try to spin profit into more money for their computer
systems; any accountant knows that such expenses would have already
been taken
out before the net profit is calculated.
66. Colorado
example - “Integrated
communication minutes for Jan. 14 - … 4. Financials.
Discussion about messaging
when we announce
our 2003 profit margin (at one time estimated at $100 million, but now
more
like $85 million… Focus of message should be on talking
about our investments
in new facilities and equipment such as KP HealthConnect. We need to reacquaint
staff with where our
profits go, so they can better explain to members.
Need to further explain to staff the relation
between profits and their salaries/bonuses… ACTION: Sean
Miller to do talking
points, which can then be used for news release, staff and physician
communication, customer service talking points, broker and purchaser
communication and member communications.”
[Source – internal Kaiser Colorado
documents show the spin the
best; that is the most profitable unit with 5% of the KP patients
producing 10%
of the profit.] {Kaiser
first tried to
accuse someone of hacking into the Colorado website but later agreed
that the
electronic window had simply been left open.}
67. In the end Permanente
runs the organization for profit using the illegal construct that the
final
goal is the” Permanente patient relationship”; the
corporate practice of
medicine is illegal in every state because it is without soul or oath. [Source – see
“corporate practice of
medicine” condemned by the Medical Board of California.]
68. The
retirement monies [Kaiser Permanente Master
Trust – 94-6389453 and employer ID 94-1240523] are organized
from the Safe
Haven in the Caymen Islands (345-949-3181), a transition away from
Deutschebank; the local outlet for the Caymen fund
is through Boston “State Street Bank and
Trust” 225 Franklin Street, Boston, MA 02110
(1-617-786-3000). [Phone numbers
for retirees to check on their benefits go to the 20th
floor – room
2001 – of the Ordway Building –
510—271-994 – Oakland, CA – seven floors
below
Mr. Halvorson/Dr. Crosson.]
69. The
movement of the worldwide funds is as
mysterious as possible: “In Australia, Bankers Trust was
acquired by Westpac
from Principal Group, who had purchased it three years earlier from
Deutsche
Bank. This
organization now uses the
name BT Financial Group. The
Trust and
Custody business that Deutsche Bank acquired from Bankers Trust was
sold to
State Street two years later.”
70. Such profits are built
upon the blood, sweat, and tears of patients, those who thought they
were
joining some benevolent organization ; the profits come from care
withheld. This is
the Grand Canyon between the supposed
“sixty years of trust” and the reality of sixty
years of compromised care.
Primary author – former Permanente (Kaiser)
Physician
– Charles
Phillips, MD, FACEP
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